I've finally committed to get these thoughts written down. At the moment this is little more than a loose collection of the thoughts which have formed the basis of my philosophy towards keyboarding in our 1:1 environment. In time I hope to develop them into something more coherent, but I figure that getting them down here was at least a decent start.
Keyboarding in the days of the typewriter was a high stakes activity. A single mistake could mean having to rewrite a whole document. Typing became a specialist profession, with courses at school dedicated to the skill.
Things have changed.
Keyboarding is now a low stakes activity. Errors can be easily corrected with the click of a mouse. Whole paragraphs can be changed, moved and formatted during the proof-reading phase. The concept of a typing pool has all but disappeared – most adult professionals are capable of keyboarding to a level sufficient to perform their computer-related jobs independently – whether or not they took high-school typing courses.
With the decrease in the necessity for perfect, mistake free typing skills, the necessity for a uniform approach to typing has also lessened.
In a 1:1 environment, children have ubiquitous access to keyboards. They should be using this daily. The already crowded curriculum it is difficult to justify spending hours each week focusing on typing skills. Instead, we should have them focus on writing skills, debating skills, reflection skills….and the keyboard is a great way for us to address these skills.
Basics should be taught:
Home keys – F and J
Two hands on the keyboard
Thumb for space
Use many fingers
But….does it really matter whether finger 4 or 5 is the correct one to use on the Q key?
What has more educational validity?
A typing video game (these have changed little over the last 20 years) with some variation on aaasssdddfff etc.
Or
Engaging, short, focused writing sessions, where the focus is on quality of content, not quantity.
Children should be typing in a meaningful way every day for at least 20 minutes (this number is obviously up for debate and requires research). This typing should be purposeful – increased typing speed should be an additional outcome of the sessions, rather than their sole focus.
A goal of a typing speed equivalent to a child’s handwriting speed could be considered a valid target for the classroom, though it could be argued that with the added editing and publishing benefits of typed text that a significantly slower typing speed still has educational merit.
The average adult handwriting speed 22 words per minute when copying, 31 words per minute from memory (from wikipedia).
Keyboarding is here to stay in some form or another for the foreseeable future. However variations on the traditional keyboard are becoming more valid – notably smart phone based texting and touch screen technology. Fluency with these forms of input devices come largely from frequent, purpose driven use.
Have you ever seen a child texting at an amazing speed? How did they get so fast?
Like I said, just ramblings at this stage, so no succinct conclusion here. But hopefully I can refine this over time into something valid and useful.
6 comments:
Good points Mike. Watching those second graders in Mumbai at ASB last February tickled those thoughts but I hadn't made them conscious yet. Thanks for doing that.
Thanks Susan.
I get a lot of comments asking about the validity of our 1:1 program going right down to grade 1. I'm a while away from coherently analyzing our data to justify this (hoping to do this at ISTE next year!), but am convinced that keyboarding fluency is one of the (many) benefits of younger children have access to laptops.
My school is investigating 1 to 1 for Years 5-7 in the near future and I've been collating feedback from parents around the proposal. There's been heaps of great feedback and questions - concerns that need addressing and the typing vs. handwriting one is one that features prominently. Parents are worried about the demise of handwriting skills - how do you counter that at your school? Also, your notes here help to place the acquisition of specific typing skills into context. But are there studies or some research that you know of that help to support your thoughts here in this blog post? Actually, I wonder if you'd be willing to look at my list of concerns/questions over email and offer some sagely counsel?
Hi Graham,
Research data is an issue...I can't say I've made an exhaustive search, but most of what I found seemed designed to sell some sort of product. Many 1:1 schools seem to purchase some words per minute scheme, but my suspicion is that this is more of a CYA approach than research based. I'm running a few assessments this year which will hopefully provide some data on both handwriting and typing speed. More to come on that.
As far as handwriting goes, I must admit to not being too attached to the process myself. We have adopted a handwriting system, and while the laptops are taking a bigger and bigger part in the writing process, we are a long way from where children are not handwriting enough in their day to day lessons.
Sagely council might be a stretch, but would happily discuss more over email. This is a work in progress for me too, so the more healthy discussion, the better.
Hey Mike,
Thanks for showing this to me. I definately agree that home row skills and spacing, etc. are a must need in efficient keyboarding skills. I find that when a child is searching for the right key, the thinking that you refer to flies out the window. While typing isn't the kind of high stakes that it used to be (you made a very valid point), it is still important to be proficient to ensure that one's ideas aren't interrupted especially in a tightly packed rigorous curriculum like ours in which time seems to be the rarest commodity.
Thanks Simone.
Your reference to the tightly packed curriculum is one the big factors in forming my "whatever works" rationale. To teach beyond some easily defined basics (using rote learning techniques we are trying to get rid of in most teaching) is unrealistic considering the time constraints. Taking an integrated approach, where typing speed is a gradual, secondary outcome seems to me to be the best way to get "bang for our buck" with the keyboard.
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